A friend of mine found what she thought was the perfect competition for me; her favourite magazine wanted short stories with the theme, “Suitcase”. Given my love of travel, and my passion for writing, she convinced me to enter.
Here it is, after many edits and re-writes (thanks to my husband for playing the role of ‘proof reader’ and ‘editor’).
Something is tickling my handle.
It might just be dust, or it might be Mr Huggles’ shaggy backside. Or, it might be another mouse nibbling at my leather… Gosh, I hope it isn’t a mouse. Vile creatures those mice, especially British pub rats. Almost chewed my label right off one did, back in the early days when I still smelt like the posh and perfumed West End of London.
Either way, it’s been dark for a while now, and it’s awfully cramped inside this box. (Quite a coincidence, how we both ended up.) But suddenly the jolting stops and I hear — nothing at all. No hum of a mechanical motor, no human voices screeching over the music box, just a door slamming and then — nothing.
A little while later there is a pinhole of light, and we are manhandled, picked up like a backdoor betty on Sunset Boulevard, and slammed down again outside, in the gutter – no, correction, on a rather lush mound of grass. The warmth hits me like one particular summer in Barcelona, back in ’87. Dry, intense, smoking heat it was. I positively baked in the street that day while he dined on faux grois and chorizos with that odd, mustached man. Talking art, they were, whilst the sun set over the snaking streets of the Barri Gotic – the tightly-packed terraces casting shadows as grim and grotesque as some of the art-nouveau architecture in the neighbouring Eixample quarter. The distinct strum of a gypsy guitar wafted around the corner, accompanied by the laughter of intoxicated men.
Suddenly, the lid flies off and a glare as strong as the midnight sun strikes me point blank – only I’m pretty sure we’re in Sydney. I can hear the cicadas hum in unison, celebrating another sizzling January. Definitely Sydney. There are voices, the sound of a hammer falling, and applause. What is this place??
“Relax, L.V.”, the shaggy bear grumbles at me. “It’s a garden auction. We’re going to find new homes. Hopefully somewhere with reverse-cycle air conditioning, and safely tucked away behind glass. No more grubby paws leaving ice-cream stains on this coat.” Ah, the Abercrombrie twins. He had let his nephews run rampant through the villa, as if they’d never been to St Tropez before. I had distracted myself with the view whilst they toyed with the bear. The colours of a hundred painted sails bobbed about outside, like flags waving happily to me, “bonjour!”.
In fact, the last auction we attended was in that very harbourside town of sailboats and popped collars. It was ghastly. (The auction, not the south of France!) All those pretty pieces of paper handed over for a bunch of rubble. I went home full of rocks – beautiful, glittering rocks, but they were sharp, and they jumbled around inside me like a Rajasthani goat curry…
*chuckle* He never did have the stomach for chilli. He was stuck in the palace bathroom for hours after that dinner party! Still, the Maharajah’s brother was kind enough to put on a dazzling show of dancing girls as an apology, and we spent the night in a silk-strewn suite that smelt of sandalwood and rose water, high above the city of Jodhpur.
“What are you getting all wistful about now, L.V.?”
“Nothing, Huggles. Mind your business and keep an eye on that hammer.”
“Ignore the grumpy bear, I’d love to hear more about your time with him!” Ah, it wasn’t a mouse. It was his old mothball beanie from our days at Chamonix.
“There’s really nothing to tell, Gerald. I was thrown around by callous-handed baggage attendants and mostly saw the inside of hotel closets”. I lied through my shiny, zippered teeth. The stiff-suited porters of the Ritz had gloves as soft as cashmere. And there were no stuffy closets for me.
I remember so vividly the time he sniffed up that powder off my back. We’d been cruising the sparkling, sapphire-like waters of the Mediterranean on his private yacht. There were glistening carafes of sangria, sweating in the greek sun like Icarus. Polished feet clicking their heels against timber floor, barely audible under the pumping synthpop beats he was famous for back then. Those were interesting times, all right! Days when he was hunted mercilessly by the hungry flash of the paparazzi; nights that he left the boat dressed in leather, fur, sequins… and oh my, the hair product. Why a man would pack that many bottles of hair spray I will never understand.
But he’s gone now. And I have spent the last ten years in a musty, cold cellar, with only a mischief of mice and the relics of a former friend to keep me company.
I never forgot the good times. I was by his side every step of the way – more than any of those scarlet tarts he surrounded himself with could say. But the bad times, as much as I tried to rid myself of their memory, are immortalised forever in the newspaper clippings buried in my belly. There are scrapbooks full of them. Everything from his first EP to his first DUI. The first time he went Platinum, the first time he went sober. His first world tour, his first arrest. His second… his twelfth. And now my dear friend, bless his soul, rests beneath the dirt, rotting with the worms, in a box no bigger than mine. He must be all bones now, although he was half-decayed by the time he got there, playing ‘Dorian Gray’ with all his excesses and indulgences. Silly man.
“SOLD!” The hammer falls. “To the woman in the blue hat.”
The lid is jammed back on. Darkness.